Artiste manager and media mogul Nana Poku Ashis is advocating for Ghana to create its own music and art festival, which would be capable of rivaling the popular Afronation festival.
He said this as a reaction to the news of the Minister of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Dr. Awal Mohammed, assuring the public that the government’s partnership agreement with Afro Nation still holds and that the festival will not be moved to Nigeria as earlier stated on the festival’s social media handles.
Nana Poku Ashis had taken to Facebook to question why Ghana couldn’t harness its own potential and create an event as big as Afro Nation.
Citing the much acclaimed Chale Wote festival, he described how it was appealing to both local and international visitors and stressed the festival’s impact on the local economy, providing job opportunities for artists and vendors across Ghana.
“The Afro Nation organization says they are taking their thing to their motherland to stage it this year, minister says never, it will be held in Ghana this year smh. So why can’t we just pick our own event, and empower it to become as big as Afro nation. We have a huge event in which the Western world is very interested, the Chale Wote festival is one of the most talked about and participated events in Ghana.
Every year The Western world books their tickets way ahead of time to come home and be a part of this event. It is spiritual to them, the Art food, music, and culture are so beautiful for them, and it also creates a lot of jobs for the local artists and numerous vendors all over Ghana Can we just extend the chale wote festival, add on the music Concert part to it, and maybe Panafest to it as well, and create a national festival, we will be Good to go for a long time
Sometimes times wonder if we failed to understand what Kwame Nkrumah meant by the Ghanaian is capable of solving his own problem!!” he posted.
Speaking on Hitz FM’s Showbiz Extra, the media personality reiterated his point asking what would happen if the Afronation festival is indeed moved to Nigeria.
“Afronation brings a lot of fun and euphoria getting to that time. If they take their thing to wherever they want to go next, what is going to happen to us? Do we have a plan?” he questioned.
He pushed for the government to be a stakeholder in the Chalewote festival and enhance it to be a homegrown festival that would be a reliable alternative to the Afronation festival.
” There’s a Chalewote festival. Look at how the youth patronize it. The locals even like that project. Why don’t we have a conversation with the stakeholders of that project? Probably the government either buys shares into it or be a partner to it?”
“Let’s create something which we don’t need to negotiate with anybody again. Whether the person says I don’t want it, this is ours; we believe in it and little by little we can have it become as big as afronation. This will be so huge, and all this talk about them going will end. Because the fact is, our brothers from the other side want it in their country now,” he argued.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com